This piece honors the victory of the U.S. Women’s National Team in the Women’s World Cup of 2015. In particular, it celebrates the accomplishments of Carli Lloyd, who won the World Cup Golden Ball and the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, and scored a hat trick in the World Cup Final. I really enjoyed working on this, though it required a substantial amount of effort to complete. I’m especially happy with certain aspects that worked out well, such as the shading. There are a couple of weak points, but the overall effect is very satisfying.

This piece pays homage to Maya Ramirez, winner of the first Project Runway Junior design competition. Maya is a student at the Toledo School for the Arts, where one of my children is also enrolled. Unfortunately for Maya, I’m still experimenting with shading faces (I’m not especially thrilled with how her visage came out.) However, the model to the left is wearing one of her designs from the final episode at New York Fasion Week, and it looks reasonably pleasing to me. There are a number of other aspects of this piece I liked, so I’m calling it a keeper.

Side note: This was the first opportunity I’ve had to work with one of Strathmore’s higher-end papers. It’s impressive how much more readily the ink takes to the page; the flip side is that it’s hard to be patient enough to let it dry (there are a number of smudges that will attest to that.)